FY23 Countering the People's Republic of China (PRC) Military Civil Fusion (MCF) Strategy and Balancing the Risks and Rewards of Emerging Technologies with WMD

Background
The Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR), part of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN), sponsors foreign assistance activities funded by the Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining and Related Programs (NADR) account, and focuses on mitigating weapons of mass destruction (WMD), related delivery systems, and advanced conventional weapons proliferation and security threats from proliferator states and non-state actors. An underlying aim of all ISN/CTR’s efforts is long-term sustainability to maximize programmatic impact while minimizing the need for foreign partners to rely on outside financial or technical assistance.

Grant Details
This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) covers two ISN/CTR lines of effort: 1) Countering the PRC’s MCF Strategy and 2) Balancing the Risks and Rewards of Emerging Technologies with WMD Applications.

The grant aims to counter the PRC’s MCF strategy related to advanced technologies of proliferation concern, including artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled technology, biotechnology, biomanufacturing, agricultural biotechnology, financial technologies, and cybersecurity. It also focuses on preventing proliferator states and non-state actors from exploiting emerging technologies with WMD applications.

The grant seeks to engage partners to understand dual-use applications of emerging technologies, install user-level controls to prevent misuse, conduct due diligence in commercial ventures to prevent diversion of emerging technologies to nefarious actors, and build foreign partner capacity to safeguard WMD-related data and materials using applicable emerging technologies such as blockchain.

Eligibility Requirements
Eligible applicants include not-for-profit organizations, public and private educational institutions, for-profit organizations, federally funded research and development centers, and public international organizations.

Cost sharing or matching is not a requirement for this NOFO. All organizations must have a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) number issued via www.SAM.gov as well as a valid registration on www.SAM.gov.

Period of Performance
The length of the performance period is 12 months with an anticipated project start date of October 1, 2023.

Grant Value
The total available funding for this grant opportunity is $13,664,775. ISN/CTR prefers projects that cost less than $300,000 though awards may involve multiple projects that cumulatively exceed $500,000.

Place of Performance
For fiscal year 2023, ISN/CTR’s priority countries for this line of effort have growing innovation, technology and biotechnology sectors in East Asia and Pacific (EAP), South and Central Asia (SCA), Sub-Saharan Africa (AF), Europe and Eurasia (EUR), Near East (NEA), and Western Hemisphere (WHA).